Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1887-09-17

r.
ed, significantly, "She should say her no,
for her word overrides all rights"
"And if She babe her leave him, and the
girl refused? What them
"If,' he said, with n shrug, 1.-The hurri-
cane bids the tree to bend, and it will not,
what happensy"
And then, without waiting for an an
swer, he turned and walked to his litter,
and in ten minutes from that tint we were
all well under way.
1t took us an hour and more to cross the
cup of the volcanic plain, and another half
hour or SO to climb the edge on the further
side. Once there, however, the view was
n very fine one. Before US was q long
steep slope Of grassy plain, broken here
and there by clumps of trees mostly of the
thorn tribe. At the bottom of the gentle
slope, some nine or ten miles away, we
could make out q dim sea of marsh, on
which the foul vapors hung like smoke
about a city. 1t was easy going for the
bearers down the slopes, and by midday
we had reached the borders of the dismal
swamp. Here we halted to eat our mid
day meal, and then, following a winding
and devious path, plunged into the morass.
Presently the path, at any rate to our I'M
accustomed eye, seemed to grow SO faint
as to be almost indistinguishable from
those made by the aquatic beasts and birds,
and it is to this day a mystery TO me how
or bearers found their way across the
marshes. Ahead OF The cavalcade marched
two men with long poles, which they now
and again plunged into the ground before
them, the reason being that the nature of
the soil frequently changed from causes
with which | am not acquainted, SO that
places that would be safe enough to cross
one month would certainly swallow the
wayfarer the next. Never did | see 4 more
dreary and depressing scene. Miles IN
miles Of ~quagmire, varied only by bright
green strips of comparatively solid ground,
and by deep and sunken pools fringed with
tall rushes, in which the bitterns doomed
aud the frogs croaked necessarily; miles
on miles of it without n break, unless the
fever fog can be called a break. The only
life in this great morass was that of the
aquatic birds, and the animals that fed on
them, of both Of which there were vast
numbers. Geese, cranes, ducks, teal, coot,
snipe, and plovcr swarmed all around us,
many being of varieties that were quite
new TO me, and all SO tame hat one could
almost have knocked them over with a
stick. Among these birds / especially
noticed n very beautiful variety Of painted
snipe, almost the size of woodcock, and
with a flight more resembling that birds
than an English snipe's. In the pools, too,
was a species Of small alligator or enorm-
Gus iguana, | do not know which, tina fed,
Billali told me, upon the waterfowl, also
large quantities of a hideous black water
snake, Of which the bite is very danger
Gus, though not, | gathered, so deadly a. a
cobra's or a puff ladders. The bull-frogs
were also very large, and with voices pro-
%portionate TO their size; and as for the
mosquitoes, they were, if possible, even
worse than they had been on the river, and
tormented us greatly. Undoubtedly, how
ever, the worst feature of the swamp was
the awful smell OF rotten vegetation that
hung about il, that was at times positively
o~verpowering, and the malarious eXhala-
tons that accompanied il, which we were,
of course, obliged to breathe.
On we went through it AL, till at last the
gun sunk in sullen spleudor just rs we
reached a spot of rising ground about two
acres in eXtent-a little oasis Of dry land
in the midst of the miry wlderness-where
Billali announced that we were to camp.
The camping, however, turned out TO be
q very simple process, and consisted, in
fact, in sitting down on the ground round
a scanty fire made of dry reeds and some
wood that had been brought with us. How
ever, we made the best we could of il, and
smoked and eat with such appetite as the
smell Of damp, sitting heat would allow,
for il was very hot in this low land, and
yet, oddly enough, chilly at times. But
however hot ii was, we were glad enough
to keep near the fire, because we found
that the mosquitoes did not like the smoke.
Presently we rolled ourselves up in our
blankets and tried to go to sleep, but SO
far as | was concerned the bull frogs, and
the extraordinary roaring and alarming
sound produced by hundreds of snipe hoy
ering high in the air, made sleep an i'm
possibility, to say nothing of our other dis
comforts. | turned and looked at Leo, who
was next me; he was doing, but his face
had a flushed appearance that | did not
like and bv the tiickerin9 tire-light | saw
Ustane, who was lying on the other SIDE
of him, raise herself from time to time
upon her elbow and look at him a~nxiously
enough.
However, l could do nothing for him, for
we had all already taken a good dose OF
q%uinine, which was the only preventive we
had; so I lay and watched the stars c"ine
out by thousands, till all the immep II
of heaven was sown with glittorinc ~
and every point q world. Here was $ glor
ious sight, by which man might well meas
ure his own insignificance!
Soon ! gave up thinking about it, for the
mind wearies easily whenit strives to crap
pie with the Infinite. or TO trace the foot
steps of the Almighty as He strides from
sphere to sphere, or deduce His purpose
from His works.
Above me, as / lay, shone the eterna
stars, and there at my feet the impisE
marsh-born balls of fire rolled this way
and that, vapor-tossed and earth desiring
and methought that in the two l saw
type and image of what man is, and VIVA
perchance mar may one day be, if the lv
ing Force hat ordained him and then
should SO ordain this also. Oh, that /
might be ours to rest year by year upol
tina high level Of the heart to which q
times we momentarily attain! Oh, tina
we could shake loose the prisoned pinion'
OF the soul and soar to that superior poin
whence, like to some traveller looking on
through space from Darien's giddiest peak
we might gaze with the spirit eyes OF no
BILE thoughts deep into lniinity!
What would il be to east off this earthl.
robe, to have done forever with these earth
ly thoughts and miserable desires: II,